


There is Nothing to be Sad About

by BlueMoon2002



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, WandaVision (TV)
Genre: Angst, Escapism, F/M, Grief/Mourning, I’m terrified for the season finale, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Wanda Maximoff Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-18 01:08:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29850279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueMoon2002/pseuds/BlueMoon2002
Summary: Wanda thinks that if she tells herself she’s happy, over and over again, then one day she’ll believe it.
Relationships: Wanda Maximoff/Vision
Comments: 6
Kudos: 51





	There is Nothing to be Sad About

**Author's Note:**

> Episode 8 destroyed me and I wanted to get my feelings out before the finale tomorrow. I’m not ready for the pain ;-;

It’s a miracle that they survive their first formal dinner. An even bigger miracle that the Harts never notice the oddities that make them unique.

The door closes and all Wanda can do is breathe a sigh of relief.

A silly mixup, having Vision think that the heart on the calendar represented dinner with his boss, while Wanda had thought it represented their anniversary... of whatever it is that today represents.

She can’t help but laugh. It’s just like the shenanigans of the old sitcoms she used to watch.

“We are an unusual couple, aren’t we?” She asks her husband as they take their seats on the couch.

“Oh, I don’t think that ever came into question,” Vision replies, wrapping an arm around her.

It’s so natural, _this_ is so natural. This is her normal, and she loves every second of it.

She’s beaming as she flicks her fingers and two matching rings appear on their fingers.

“I do,” she murmurs, leaning on her Vision’s shoulder.

“I do,” he repeats, and then they kiss, and it’s perfect.

_There’s nothing to be sad about._

❧

It’s another miracle that they survive the magic show. Once again, Wanda finds herself sighing in relief, then laughing. It truly is so similar to the sitcoms.

There is a noise outside. She and her husband give each other nervous glances. Perhaps it’s the branches again?

No, it was something else. Something to do with the helicopter, she thinks. She doesn’t know what her husband is thinking, or what he suspects, but she doesn’t check.

Things have been weird today. The helicopter, the voice on the radio, the blood on Dottie’s hand...

She leads as the couple leaves their cute little suburban home. She stands in front of her husband, protecting him, and they both watch as the manhole slips out of its place, and something climbs out of it.

A beekeeper. With a strange logo on his back.

_No._

She’s inside the house again. She never left the house. There is no noise outside.

She smiles as she leans on her tiptoes to kiss Vision. When they part, she gasps and looks down at her stomach. Her growing, pregnant belly.

“Is this really happening?” She asks, because she suddenly feels like she needs an answer. To know that this wasn’t a dream.

She can’t bear the idea of waking up. Of seeing a world without... without...

No. She can’t think.

“Yes, my love,” Vision whispers, kissing her again, and she doesn’t worry anymore. In fact, she’s happier than she’s been in a long time. She’s here, with her husband, and she was going to have their child.

_There is nothing to be sad about._

❧

She looks at her twin babies and she can’t stop smiling. Everything is perfect. She has her husband, her children, the most wonderful friends she can ask for.

Geraldine coos over the twins, and Wanda offers her a smile, too.

A memory flickers in the back of her mind.

“I’m a twin,” she confesses, because she feels Geraldine is allowed to know. “His name was... Pietro.”

Her heart aches. She misses her brother. He would have loved Vision, she was sure. He would have been a wonderful uncle to her babies. A terrible influence, she would have called him, but still grateful he was in her life, in her children’s life.

“He was killed by Ultron, wasn’t he?” Geraldine asks.

Wanda freezes.

She can’t stop the memory. She never saw it happen, but she felt it in her heart. They were twins after all, and they had a connection, and she’d felt it in her heart. She’d felt it when her other half died, when she was suddenly all alone in the world, no family...

She frowns. “What did you say?”

“...Uh, do you want me to hold one of the twins?” Geraldine asks, trying to derail, but Wanda sees it in her eyes-she knows something, she _knows_.

“What did you say about Pietro?” She demands. There’s a necklace around Geraldine’s neck. It’s the same logo on the beekeeper. The one who hadn’t belonged.

Geraldine _didn’t belong._

There’s red power in her hands and the next thing she knows, she’s ordering Geraldine to leave.

Then she’s making her.

Geraldine is gone, like she’d never been.

Wanda takes a deep breath and pushes the memories of Pietro down deep into her chest. She doesn’t need to remember, doesn’t need to think about what happened before... before all this. Before this dreamworld she refuses to wake up from.

Vision enters the house, worry on his face. “Where is Geraldine?” He asks her.

It’s not her real name. The woman’s name isn’t Geraldine, it’s one she made up for...

“She left, honey,” she tells Vision, keeping her eyes on her babies. The babies she and Vision made together. “She had to go home.”

_Outside, where she belonged._

She smiles as Vision comes to stand by her side, as they both watch their children together. This is the family she’s always wanted, the one she’s felt she deserved.

She loves Vision. She loves her family. She loves her home.

_There is nothing to be sad about._

❧

She’s on the couch and she’s struggling not to cry when she sees the anger in her Vision’s eyes. He wants the truth, but she doesn’t know what to tell him, she doesn’t know how to explain this town, these people, their _children_...

He’s here, he’s here. Her Vision is here, and if he leaves her she doesn’t know how she’ll survive it. Memories are blooming in her mind again, horrible memories that will break her when she remembers them fully. She can’t let herself remember.

 _Please, take me back to the dream. Make it back to the way it was._ She silently begs the gods, or fate, or something. _Please don’t take it all away from me._

_Not again._

“Tell me the truth, Wanda,” Vision whispers, and he speaks in a tone she never wants to hear him use again. God, she can’t handle it if he hates her.

_Please, please, please-_

There’s a knock on the door. They both stop and stare.

“I didn’t do that,” Wanda murmurs, and it’s the truth. She doesn’t know how they got here, how they came into this town, how things became the way they were. But she knows. She didn’t summon whoever is at the door.

He doesn’t believe her.

She wants to cry.

She gets to her feet and heads towards the door, hoping whoever was there would stop the tears. She opens it and...

She stops.

_Pietro._

It’s the same hair, the same eyes, the same annoying smirk... but the facial structure is wrong, his face is all wrong, but she sees him and she thinks he can be no one other than Pietro. Her brother. Her twin. Her other half before Vision.

She can’t speak, can hardly find it in her to breathe. How, how, _how_? How is this possible?

Did she do this?

“Long lost brother get to hug his sister to death or what?” Pietro asks her, and he doesn’t have an accent, but neither does she (she worked so hard on her English when she joined the Avengers), and she doesn’t know if she wants to hug him or order him away.

She lets him into her house. He’s her brother.

Her brother, her husband, her children. Her heart is racing as she realizes her family is complete. Her family is _complete_.

She forces a smile. Maybe he isn’t her Pietro, but she can pretend. She can pretend there isn’t a terrible feeling in her chest telling her this is wrong, he is wrong.

Her family is here.

_There is nothing to be sad about._

❧

She tells Pietro the truth when he asks. She doesn’t know how this happened.

She doesn’t want to remember. She thinks of the emotion she felt and she shuts it down before the memories can resurface and drown her. She’s so tired of drowning in her memories.

Why can’t she have her happy ending?

Her sons race to her, and she can’t even acknowledge that Billy has inherited her powers, because he’s telling her her husband is _dying_ , their father is outside the town and he is _dying_. She feels for his presence and feels it slipping away, and all she can think is _no._

She’s not losing her husband again.

She waves her hands, and the whole world _stops_.

Then she closes her eyes and lets that wave inside her consume her whole.

Her world _grows_.

She doesn’t think about who might be caught in the barrier. She doesn’t think about how trapped everyone is already. She doesn’t think about the people, because thinking about the people will make the guilt creep in and consume her.

And she can’t let her emotions consume her. She can’t let the pain in. Never again.

Never again.

She feels her husband inside the barrier again, safe, yet she doesn’t think about how he tried to get outside. She doesn’t think about how he might hate her, how he probably should. The barrier stops growing, and she opens her eyes, and she’s suddenly too exhausted to stand.

She goes home and stumbles into her bedroom and she sleeps. She doesn’t think.

She insists to herself, again...

_There is nothing to be sad about._

❧

Agatha Harkness has power like hers, and when she tells Wanda she is a witch she doesn’t want to believe it. She’s seen robots come to life, she’s seen gods wield lighting, and she’s seen pebble-sized stones become the key to bringing the universe to its knees. Yet witches are supposed to be fairy tales, and yet there’s a witch, right in front of her, a classic one, too. She even has the laugh.

Agatha helps her rise from her knees where she’d fallen to the stone floor, and she points her towards a white door. Behind that door are memories, Agatha says, and Wanda’s heart goes into her throat.

She doesn’t want to remember. She doesn’t want to remember what she’s suffered through, because she remembers the feeling of drowning and she can’t go through that again, she _can’t_.

Agatha’s hand pushes her through the door, and Wanda wants to fight back, but she can’t. Her children, she can hear her children calling out to her.

If she can survive this, she can have her children safe. She takes a deep breath. If only Vision were here. He would make things better.

He always makes things better.

She doesn’t want to be alone, and yet she walks through the door and into her past, those same words looping through her brain as a shield against the wave she senses at the bottom of her soul.

_There is nothing to be sad about._

❧

Her family is smiling and laughing and teasing each other in a mix of Russian and English, and Wanda takes a seat next to Pietro as her little chest flutters in excitement. Her father puts in the DVD, and she can’t stop smiling as the screen lights up and the opening them to the Van Dyke show fills the room.

The world outside her house is so scary. She’s fallen asleep to the sounds of gunfire. She’s been brought to the basement a thousand times, told what to do if the bomb siren ever goes off. Many practice drills, and only one real one where she struggled not to scream as she heard planes overheard. They’d been lucky that night. Their town hadn’t been the target.

Wanda forgets all that when she settles onto her spot on the floor, watching the sitcom she’s come to love above any other movie or show. Sitcoms were her favorite-they were like little dreamworlds, where there was never anything to be sad about.

She looks back and sees her parents smiling. Her mother blows her a kiss.

She looks back at the TV. She laughs at the silly situation the characters get into. She imagines living inside the TV, with those characters, having the time of her life. Bad things would happen, but they would never last forever.

Then-

**BANG!**

She wakes up in what used to be her living room. She can’t breathe. There’s smoke and ash in the air. She’s pulled to her feet by Pietro, and she’s quiet and numb, she doesn’t realize what’s happening until he’s yanked her under the bed. They both watch a bomb crash into the floor, and she sees a word that will damn her for the rest of her life.

_Stark._

She closes her eyes and wills it all away. _Make it a bad dream. Make this a nightmare,_ she thinks. She hears the sounds of the sitcom, opens her eyes and sees the TV still running, the characters still smiling and laughing in a world with no bombs and guns and scary people doing scary things.

And she spends two days under that bed, with her brother, willing herself into that dreamworld, forcing it all to the back of her mind, where the knowledge that her home was gone and her parents dead can’t come to hurt her.

_There’s nothing to be sad about._

She says it, over and over.

She stops saying it when her shock and grief settles in, only to be replaced with a mind-numbing rage.

❧

Wanda is shaking and scared when she approaches the strange scepter with the glowing orb. She calls herself a volunteer, and she is, she asked for this, but she also heard one of the scientists say no one’s survived this particular experiment.

Warily, she approaches.

The crystal in the scepter breaks away and floats towards her. It’s like magic, but she knows by now that magic isn’t real.

The crystal suddenly shatters, and inside is a tiny, yellow stone. That stone blinds her with a white light, and she gasps when she looks up and sees a figure above her.

She thinks she recognizes it.

Suddenly, something in her breaks like a dam, and everything goes black.

She wakes alone in a room. It’s like a jail cell, and she’s scared, because she doesn’t know what happened to her. There’s a TV in the corner, and she realizes it’s a sitcom.

She watches with sharp intent, until her heart stops pounding, until she’s calm again, even though there’s a strange feeling in her entire body, like her blood had become pure adrenaline.

The sitcom calms her. Sitcoms have always calmed her. They brought her out of her head, helped her forget the smell of smoke and the charred corpses of her parents. Helped her forget the agonizing days of waiting for death to take her too.

She forces a smile as she watches that TV. Later, she will discover she has telekinesis, and telepathy, and she will be forced to get used to this inhuman side of her, and she will be forced to use it against people who don’t particularly deserve to be hurt. She will discover that they used the scepter on her brother, and now he can run faster and faster and faster, so fast she will always fear he will leave her behind.

But now...

_There is nothing to be sad about._

❧

It’s drowning her, and she doesn’t know how to escape.

She wants to be alone, but she doesn’t protest when Vision enters the room, and she lets him sit next to her. These days, he’s the only person she’ll allow near, the only person who makes her feel just the slightest bit human anymore. Sometimes she wishes the bomb had gone off and she and her brother had died together. It would have been a lot easier than being left behind, just as she feared she would.

Vision’s never experienced grief, the opposite of her, whose life is full of it, yet he makes her feel something she’s never felt before. He talks to her, and though he doesn’t understand, he tries to, and he _hears_ her. When is the last time someone listened to her and truly heard her?

Though she keeps the sitcoms on her TV every hour of the day, she finds she doesn’t need to use them to run away. She doesn’t need to dive deep into their little dreamworlds anymore, not when she has someone like Vision to talk to.

She’s scared to get close at first, but he’s so patient with her, and she slowly lets him in until he’s suddenly broken down all her walls, until he suddenly has her heart unconditionally.

She’d thought she’d died when Pietro had been taken from her, yet being with Vision makes her feel human. He makes her feel alive again. He makes her want to experience the world outside her bedroom. He makes her want to live, to stop dreaming and to pursue a life in reality. He grounds her. She hasn’t felt this grounded and happy since... ever.

She realizes she loves him. She realizes that all her dreams of falling in love are nothing compared to the real thing.

She tells herself she’s happy and she believes it.

_There’s nothing to be sad about._

❧

And then he’s gone.

And she has nothing.

She watches all these friends and families and lovers reunite and she feels completely alone. No Pietro, no Vision. No Vision.

Where is he? Where is her Vision?

There is no Thanos to focus all her rage into. There is no vengeance to pursue, because the man who killed her beloved is dead and everyone thinks that everything can just be okay again, but they’re wrong. There’s no going back. They reversed the effects and yet there are still _consequences_.

She marches into SWORD headquarters because all she wants is closure. All she wants is for everything to be okay again, yet she can’t pick up the pieces. She wants a funeral, that’s all she wants. She wants to tell Vision goodbye, but she doesn’t want to let him go.

She can’t bear to let him go. It’s too soon and it hurts too much.

She’s on the precipice again, but there’s no Vision to pull her back from the edge.

She hates Hayward immediately, though she can’t understand why. Then he shows her what they’ve done to her Vision and she wants to destroy the whole building.

But she can’t. She doesn’t want to cause any more pain than she already has, and she presses her hands to the glass and fights not to cry, because they’re taking her Vision apart, pulling out his insides and removing his limbs, and she’s glad he’s not awake to feel this, to see what he’s become, to see what _she’s_ become. She’s on that precipice, and she fights not to fall over the edge and drown.

She forces her way down to the lab and she approaches her beloved and she reaches out. She uses her power to feel through his robotic mind, but where she once felt her Vision, she feels...

Nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

And it suddenly hits her like a wave and she’s drowning as she realizes she was fooling herself all along. She’d thought there might be a way, that SWORD, Stark, _someone_ could _fix_ him, that they didn’t need a stone to make Vision her Vision again. But no, she’s lied to herself and now he’s _gone_.

She doesn’t know how she turns herself away. She doesn’t know how she manages to walk out of that building, away from the shattered remains of her beloved, her soulmate, her _husband_ , and get into the car. She drives.

She drives, she doesn’t know where at first. Aimlessly, she drives, and she thinks about that precipice, and how easy it would be to join her Vision in the nothingness. When she’d been erased, she’d been so _calm_.

For a moment she wished she hadn’t been brought back. Hayward’s words echo in her head.

_He’s not yours._

She hates herself for thinking he could be hers and hers alone. It had always been borrowed time.

She realizes she’s in New Jersey when she finds herself driving into Westview, a tiny, barely noticeable town that she’d seen on the internet and fallen in love with immediately. It had reminded her of the sitcoms of her childhood.

The sitcoms that were never real to begin with. All those dreamworlds and she doesn’t belong in any of them.

She looks at the little town that she should have called home. She looks at all the people she should have called neighbors.

There’s something building inside of her, and the cracked dams of her emotions threatens to shatter. She takes a deep, shuddering breath. In, out.

_There’s nothing to be sad about._

She doesn’t believe it for a second. She’s been lying to herself her entire life.

She parks at an empty lot where only the outline of a house is. She gets out and she enters that lot, and she stares.

In her hands is a deed to the property, and written in Vision’s writing is a promise of a future that will never be.

He’d wanted to give her her sitcom life-he’d wanted to give her a cute little house in the suburbs where they could have funny shenanigans and have kids and grow old together. He’d wanted to give her a life of bliss after a life of pain.

All of it _gone_. Gone, gone, gone. All gone, shattered in an instant. By her, then by Thanos when he reversed her efforts to save the universe.

She falls to her knees. She doesn’t know how to breathe. She doesn’t want to live. She can’t live with this pain anymore. Her chest is hurting, her heart and her soul are hurting. It hurts so much, and her Vision is gone. He can’t make that agony go away.

There are tears streaming down her face and her inner dams are cracking, and she feels her power growing, too, and she’s losing control. She’s lost all control, and she’s drowning, drowning, drowning. 

Alone, she’s all alone.

She wraps her arms around herself. Her life and her future are gone. Her family is gone, her friends are gone. There’s no one left to care about her, no one left to hold her.

She _breaks_.

❧

She opens her eyes and there is her Vision, and here is their house, and this is their life.

She’s terrified, because she doesn’t know what’s happening, why this is real. She doesn’t know if this is real.

She approaches her Vision, and she’s so scared, her heart is in her throat, and if this is a dream, she never wants to wake up.

It’s like they’re in a fifties sitcom, it’s like they’re in the Van Dyke show, and they’re a couple who try their best to be normal, while hiding the fact that she’s telekinetic and he’s a robot.

Her clothes are gone and she’s wearing a pretty blue dress that is black and white on her imaginary screen, and her hair is in a cute fifties style, and she smiles.

“Wanda,” says Vision-her world, her soulmate, her husband. “Welcome home.”

Yes, this is her home, and she beams as she approaches her husband, and they take their seats on their living couch, and she’s so overjoyed when it feels like the most natural thing in the world.

She kisses her husband, and he kisses her back, and she’s happy.

_There’s nothing to be sad about._

❧

 _It isn’t real_ , Wanda forces herself to think as she confronts the witch holding her children hostage. _None of it is real._

But God, she wants it to be. She _needs_ it to be.

She’s going to fight for her home, because she can’t go back to living in an ocean of grief, drowning with no one to save her.

_There is nothing to be-_

“I know what you are, Wanda,” Agatha tells her. “You’re the Scarlet Witch.”

Wands stops, and deep in her heart she realizes she will never be allowed to keep this world to herself.


End file.
